Barbara C. Marquardt

As Interviewed by Eleanor J., March 8, 2017

"There's students running everywhere, and all I can remember is going to class, walking up the steps, and there were young, young members of the National Guard. They were probably just my age, but they were holding weapons."

Introductory Profile: About Barbara C. Marquardt

Barbara Marquardt is a retired lawyer and judge who lives across the street from me. Her early childhood was spent on the east coast before moving to the midwest when she was a teenager. Barbara was a scholarship student who worked her way through college at UW Madison in the 1960s. She attended UW Madison because it was the best state university in her home state of Wisconsin, but it was also one of the most radicalized campuses in the country during the 1960s.

In my interview, Barbara recalls her experience as a witness to the student protest movement during her time at UW Madison. She recalls the tear gas of the Dow Day Demonstration and spontaneously joining the protest following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In addition, she and her husband Tom were present at the protest outside of the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Barbara didnít consider herself to be an activist while she was a student, but her experiences as a witness to the student movements of the 1960s helped to shape her life.